View Full Version : Evening All, on the hunt for a Caiman!
Hi,
I've been scanning about on here for the last few weeks now trying to decide whether to push the boat out and get a DAC or not.
Bought a Cambridge Audio 540c last week and from listening to the reviews on here I plan on taking it back tomorrow. Due to the fact most of the music I listen to is either from Spotify on my Laptop.
I was going to go for the CA DACmagic but now I'm feeling that if I get a Caiman DAC from Stan then this will kill two birds with one stone.
1. Increasing the quality of laptop music via USB
2. Able to hook up most other audio sources.
3. No doubt in the future I will end up modding it.
4.Its pretty much future-proof!
Current set up is pretty basic compromising of:
Laptop > 3.5mm into Yamaha AV amp *using 2ch enhancer*> Tannoy F1 Custom Speakers.
Just hoping that with the Yama (DSP-AX761) set to either straight or pure direct and using some good CA Phono cables will make music even better than it already is!
Any advice, or should I just get it ordered 1st thing tomorrow (Payday :eyebrows:)
Stratmangler
13-05-2010, 20:55
Hi Stebbi
Welcome to the forum.
I've had my Caiman since December, and I'm delighted with it - I get excellent sound from all of the inputs.
However, nearly all of my large HDD music collection is FLAC, with a few ALAC files thrown in. MP3 files are largely absent, the few that are there are 320kbps
If your collection is largely MP3 of higher compression then you might find a Caiman to be too ruthless - a TC7250 might suit your purpose better.
If you do get a Caiman be prepared for a long running in period.
Most of the music now will be streamed from Spotify, so the quality should be pretty good (sounds very good through the AV already)
Vast majority of CD's I have saved as MP3 are at 320kbps or lossless.
The reason I'm considering the Caiman is that it will last me quite a few years and as you can see I'm only at the start of my HiFi venture.
The amp atm isn't Ideal and this will be changed for a dedicated hifi amp, something like a CA 740a in a couple of years once I have my own place so I dont know if that would have a bearing on anything.
My main concern is that I listen to a fair bit of everything from Dubstep, Chart, Drum and Bass to more chilled out music like Moby.
And not sure how the Caiman would handle the range of styles of music, eg being more suited to Moby compared to Dubstep.
Would it make more sense to stick to the 7520 and save the £50 extra or get the Caiman now for the long term
I bought the Caiman last August, joined this forum, haven't stopped smiling or listening to (much enhanced quality) music since - I bought it for the USB, but use it for everything - you know what my answer is! ;)
Stratmangler
13-05-2010, 22:52
My main concern is that I listen to a fair bit of everything from Dubstep, Chart, Drum and Bass to more chilled out music like Moby.
And not sure how the Caiman would handle the range of styles of music, eg being more suited to Moby compared to Dubstep.
Would it make more sense to stick to the 7520 and save the £50 extra or get the Caiman now for the long term
I wouldn't worry about musical styles - the Caiman does its' job properly. Which means that style or genre doesn't come into the equation.
I'd suggest getting a power amp and using the variable out on the Caiman to control the output level.
The Vinyl Adventure
14-05-2010, 09:05
The ax761 is a pretty good amp to be fair, especially for a suround sound amp... I had one for a while. I would think the caiman would sound pretty good with it as although it can be quite unforgiving the yamaha is a lot more forgiving than a lot of other suround sound amps. If you had one of the sonys from 2 years ago I think that would sound way to harsh with 320kbps music, but as it is with the yam I don't think you will have a problem... And like you say if you intend to upgrade at a later date you are on to a winner with the caiman and perhaps would never need to upgrade your dac/pre!
The Vinyl Adventure
14-05-2010, 09:07
As a side note, from experience "pure direct" if you can cope with that stupidly bright blue led is the way to go!
Hi Stebbi (what's your name, btw ?) ! :)
Look here : http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=6386
The 761 is my 1st amp I have had and only run it in stereo atm as its only in my room.
Should be moving out in a couple of months when I will be able to dedicate the Yama to surround sound and as mentioned something like the 740a as a hifi dedicated one.
I'm still very impressed with how it sounds on its own so fingers crossed with the DAC in line it will blow me away.
Pure direct has always confused me, with my 540c that I'm taking back it always sounded very flat and muffled but when set to 'straight' it was very good, so whats the difference between the two?
Themis; my names Ross, Just had the nick-name Stebbi since I was about 12 and its stuck with me since, its my username on all of the forums I'm on.
and thanks for the link, I've sent Stan a PM with so hopefully will hear from him very soon :)
Mark Grant
14-05-2010, 11:47
I don't think you would be disappointed with the Caiman :)
Mark.
Really hope not.
Just bought the Caiman in the above link.
Fingers crossed it'll sound just as good as the 540c it'll be replacing
Well done that man! :)
And, pre burnt-in for you so you get to hear all that lovely Caimaness from the word go without going :scratch:...
Enjoy, look forward to hearing how you get on, but to be honest, if you hate it, you'll sell it on probably at the same money so you're not risking much. But you'll love it, I'm sure.
:dance:
Fingers crossed it'll sound just as good as the 540c it'll be replacing
No worries about that Ross, ehhhh... Stebbi. ;)
I have a 540C myself and there's no comparison, I'm quite confident.
I've just been thinking about my amp situation with the Yamaha, and Is there any need for me to actually upgrade this if I will be running it directly from the Caiman?
In essence would it not be bypassing all DAC's within the AV amp and effectively doing the same job as any other amp?
I'm still learning about these things as I only found out the difference between a pre and power amp today!
Stebbi, your amp is probably the weakest point in your setup. If one day you need to upgrade something, you'll need a dedicated audio-only amp with bridging capabilities (so that you can integrate it with the AV amp), surely you have a 5.1 system ?
The Vinyl Adventure
15-05-2010, 09:37
That's odd about pure direct...
My only assumption would be that you have the tone controls in use. If you listen to it in "straight" I think the tone control circuit still works? - you probably have boosted the bass and treble giving you a more lively sound. When you press "pure direct" it's bypassing the tone controls and so sounding relatively more dull.
You ask about will it do the same as any other amp if you bypass the tone controls etc ... Yes and no... Not all amps are created equal obviously so it will do the same in theory but in practice not really...
The problem is you are sorta stuck between a rock and a hard place... The more lively sound from "straight" with the tone controls activated will no doubt actually be less detailed and in fact is a sorta false representaion of the sound (because of the tone controls - crap I hope mattmerr doest read that - if he does - matt, here I am talking about ANALOGUE tone controls!!... ) ... But you don't like the pure direct... Unfortunatly this actually means you don't like you amp's sound, as pure direct is what it says, pure - no effects, no eq, just the amp doing it's amping
Now, before I said about the caiman possibly being a good match for the yam as the yam was quite forgiving ... Well forgiving can also be termed as dull or soft depending on your preferance - it smooths over stuff, not giving the greatest detail, but quite an easy to listen to sound... The caiman is the oposite - very detailed and if you play something that was recorded badly through it, that's what you hear... Once you get the caiman in you might find pure direct a bit more exiting to listen to...you might not... If not, yeah I'd say you need a new stereo amp. The good thing is, you won't need to spend a lot to beat the yam... Not disrespecting the yam at all, they are good for what they are, mine was the centre of my hifi for probably 6 months with a yam cd player and I thought it was fine! But... In that box you have £300 worth of 7 channels of amplification, not to mention all the dacs and processors etc...
When you buy a stereo amp, as it's just gonna be a 2 channel power amp, what ever money you spend will only go on 2 channels of amp and a box with a few conections on the back. If you spent £300 on a power amp to go with your caiman ... if you pick the right amp, You would have a very very good hifi... There's loads of people here with suggestions for power amps too...
I have a pair of gainclone diy amps that I bought off a fellow member her for £60 ... They absolutly kill the yam in combo with the caiman ... I was quite lucky to pick up a fullin working diy project off someone, but it does serve as an example of what can be done with next to nothing. My office system cost about £460 - caiman, gainclones and usher s520's all bought from members off this forum on advice from members here ... I won't tell you what my main hifi cost - the power amp alone cost more than 3 times that... But the best thing about it is the office system is probably 75% of the way to the main system! There's a lot of good folks around this forum with vast product knowledge, it's a good place to be as your starting to get the hifi bug... You can save your self a lot of money taking on board the advise of some of the people here!
Well I'm pretty impressed with the DAC, adds some real depth to the music.
Though at the same time it kind of flattens it out and makes it sound a lot softer and less airy.
Its odd because after listening to it when not on pure direct it sounds good but then then it is switched to pure direct it sounds so flat for about 30sec until i readjust to the added depth.
Now really thinking about getting a dedicated stereo power amp to go with it, and use the Caiman as a pre-amp.
Some seriously expensive ones out there unfortunatly and with a budget of only about £250 it looks like im going to have a long hard slog to try and find one which will pair up well with the Caiman to add a bit more excitement to the music again
250 notes eh? That's about the cost of a secondhand Arcam P85...
Simon
I've just been thinking about my amp situation with the Yamaha, and Is there any need for me to actually upgrade this if I will be running it directly from the Caiman?
In essence would it not be bypassing all DAC's within the AV amp and effectively doing the same job as any other amp?
I'm still learning about these things as I only found out the difference between a pre and power amp today!
I have the Yamaha AX-596 with Pure direct. I decoupled the amplifier so that my 7520 could plug straight into the power amp.
Here's what I observed;
http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3767&highlight=headless
Before that, I lived in Pure direct and loved it. Not anymore:)
David, I kind of understand what you mean from that thread but I have no idea what decoupling or disconnecting 'jumpers' are.
Pretty new to all of this.
Guessing that if I disconnect the pre-amp then it will make a big difference when used with the Caiman as you say but how would the amp fair with running the likes of a blu-ray through it via hdmi, or would it have to be a hdmi into the amp and optical into the caiman then to the amp?
I did consider building a gainclone but my god theres so much conflicting info on how to build and what kits to go with!
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